Weekly Tarot

July 14-20, 2025
The Fool

Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?
Donald Sutherland as Oddball in Kelly’s Heroes

After last week’s serious, hyper-logical King of Swords, the Tarot swings us firmly in the opposite direction. For this week of relatively quiet astrology, as well as the “Good Trouble Lives On” national day of action, our frequent visitor of grand new hopes and beginnings returns.

Let us hope his arrival this week portends a big shift towards better times. Say hello to our good friend, The Fool.

The Fool is all about potential, new beginnings, and risk-taking. It’s time for a complete reboot, a clean slate, and taking a very important leap of faith.

Sporting a jaunty red feather, with his hand in the position of the Gyan Mudra, he holds a white rose –- symbol of both passion and purity. Poised on the precipice, he is accompanied by his companion dog who is either warning or dancing with him (or a bit of both).

His cloak is covered in circles divided into eighths – referencing the eight quarters and cross-quarter holidays of the Wheel of the Year.

As the sumptuous Tarot Birth Cards course by Ruth Ann and Wald Amberstone muses, perhaps The Fool is not aware that he appears to be in jeopardy, because he is not.

They suggest that in his reality, every time he steps out, the Earth rises up to meet him. I am inclined to agree.

That is why the Universe loves The Fool and honors him (and her). The fact is, no breakthrough, no cure, no discovery, no accomplishment in human history was ever made without someone being thought a Fool for trying.

The Fool is that longing within that sometimes reaches out to be at home everywhere, and sometimes feels it is nowhere. His assigned numeral of Zero is apropos: he is outside of things and yet fully integrated within himself.

In addition, bear in mind that rather than the Minors’ focus on, say, matters of the mind in the Swords or security and resources in the Pentacles, the Tarot Triumphs offer us powerful life insights that affect all aspects of our lives.

A Relatively Quiet Week in the Cosmos

This week’s big astrological news is that after Saturn’s station yesterday (Sunday), turning retrograde until November 27, Mercury retrogrades this Friday the 18^th.

I am sure you realize that none of us is suggesting the planets literally go backwards in their orbits. It’s just how they appear in the skies above our planet from time to time. But that backwards-seeming energy does affect us in myriad ways, based on our charts and our sensitivities.

Once Mercury turns retrograde, it will be joining Pluto, Uranus, and Saturn in appearing to be moving backwards, reversing and changing the energies they bestow.

Our wise friend in the UK, Lorna Bevan, comments on all this retrograde activity and how it may affect us:

Don’t even try to set any hard and fast goals or linear time-lines and re-frame all your agreements, arrangements, and previously firm contracts as fluid and re-negotiable.

Practice the art of Wu Wei by dropping the struggle, aligning with the present and accepting the flow and course of nature, of life itself. When you stop making waves and learn to wait and watch, you see outside forces more clearly and make wiser moves. You live in accordance with Reality, with What Is. No Action Doesn’t Mean ‘Nothing’ Happens.

You are not failing – you are re-orienting.

The Fool adds extra emphasis to this, urging you to forgo whatever it is you feel you are slogging through. “Must” and “should?” According to whom? You would probably be much happier, effective, and in tune with All, if you danced with the flow of what is now happening.

And astrology adept Elisabeth Grace tells us that the Sabian Symbol for this Mercury retrograde —

… is “sunshine just after a storm.“ 

Sabian expert Blain Bovee sees this as “the first opening of cloud cover, allowing in radiant light and warmth, after a violent atmospheric disturbance….’just after’ suggests a heavy sky with a small fissure in the otherwise seamless cover.” It’s interesting to have this image appear now, when other patterns suggest fractures and system collapse. “Fractures and system collapses” sound intimidating, but this Sabian Symbol suggests a glimmer of enlightenment — dare we call it hope…

You are more personally afffected by Mercury’s retrograde station if you have planets or angles around 15 degrees of Leo, Scorpio, Taurus, or Aquarius. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anyone among the Usual Suspects, but I’m sure we’ll be reading about them in the news later this week. Meanwhile, wherever 4 – 15 degrees of Leo falls in your horoscope is where you may benefit from a review. Consider thinking more creatively, playfully, and with heart.

Adopt a playful attitude of flexibility to whatever twists you encounter. Avoid making major purchases (especially electronic ones), but don’t freak out if an appliance dies and must be replaced.  Don’t believe everything you hear or read in the papers. Rumors have a higher probability of spreading during Mercury retrogrades. Avoid losing patience — that’s a big one.

When in doubt, be silent!

Do plan on RElaxing, REviewing, REsearching, REorganizing, REgenerating, REconnecting and REcreating…and REviewing your life with your astrologer.

She also points out that:

Here we are, halfway through a long lull of no contacts between the planets except for those involving the Moon. Based on past experience, we may expect sudden system collapses, in the way that an ice shelf collapses into the sea without warning, forever altering the landscape.

Highlights this week are:

Mercury goes retrograde at 12:44 AM ET on Friday

Venus sextiles Mercury on Friday.

That’s it.

In short, before that ice shelf falls, this might be a splendid time for some divine Fooling around, and finding the joy in all situations. Both Lorna and Elisabeth are very clear that next week promises some very intense influences, so embrace this respite and kick up your heels.

AFTER you have backed up all your technology, please. Don’t wait – do it now!

Dancing and Daring Your Truth

The Fool is one of my favorite cards in the Tarot, because how people react to him is always instructive. There he stands, the bliss ninny stepping off the side of a cliff, holding his rose, and gazing off at some invisible (to us) wonderment.

He makes many of my clients very uncomfortable. He is exactly what is wrong, they complain to me, with their husband/wife/child/co-worker. And he represents exactly what they most fear, if they begin to explore what and who they would rather be.

Does he not see the danger? Shouldn’t he be taking someone’s advice, playing it smart, following the rules?

He’s the antithesis of our need for control. Once you step out of your safety zone, there is no telling where you might end up.

And sometimes, that is precisely what we need.

What Will You Risk For Bliss?

How about a breath of completely fresh air? How about dropping the pretense and compromise, instead reaching for your highest heights? Isn’t it time to take the risk of being truly you?

That is The Fool’s gift to you this week, with impeccable, no foolin’ timing.

What kind of power might be present in the tools you carry? What’s in your own traveling baggage? What have you already said goodbye to? And what new journey beckons?

The Fool is only a fool to those who stand on the sidelines, judging him.

In order to grow into who we truly are, we must be willing to chance it. Taking the risk of authenticity is the scariest, most necessary thing we will ever do.

Leap and look foolish we must, or else join the ranks of the sleepwalkers who prefer to numb out, or insulate themselves in cynicism and “negative waves.” I am sure that you, as I do, see them every day.

This week, if you were to simply follow your bliss, what foolish steps would you take? What beautiful new path lies before you, beckoning to your wildest, truest desires?

Do not overthink this. Embrace this time out of time, for it is a gift.

It is time for us to dance on the foolish edge. Never lose sight of the fact that joy is resistance. Art is subversive. Freedom begins in your heart.

For yours is none other than the dream of the Dreamer.

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